


The Measure of Friendship

by Jupiter_Ash



Series: A Kind of Magic [8]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Gen, Sad Aziraphale (Good Omens), possible tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:54:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26198938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jupiter_Ash/pseuds/Jupiter_Ash
Summary: Part of the Harry Potter verse where Crowley and Aziraphale are sorted into Hufflepuff. Set during their 1st year.One of the things Crowley particularly liked about Aziraphale, was his friend’s honesty when it came to emotions. So, when Aziraphale started to change, Crowley grew concerned.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: A Kind of Magic [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1467316
Comments: 12
Kudos: 54





	The Measure of Friendship

**Author's Note:**

> Warning, this story involves a specific type of grief that has the potential to be triggering. Please see the notes at the end for specifics.
> 
> Big thanks to Kizzia for the Beta!

One of the things Crowley particularly liked about Aziraphale was his friend’s honesty when it came to emotions.

Aziraphale was all emotions. Sure, it could get a bit much at times, but the alternative was the type of people who Crowley had grown up with, the type of people who believed showing anything more than a smirk was a sign of weakness: 

_Don’t show you like something or it might be taken away from you. Don’t be too happy about something or you might be attacked with it. Don’t take anything at face value because everyone was lying._

Aziraphale was different though. Aziraphale was real. Aziraphale was straightforward. And, most of all, Aziraphale was honest. Especially when it came to emotions. 

When he was happy, he was happy. He smiled, he bounced, he wiggled in his seat. 

When he was frustrated, he was frustrated. He frowned, he muttered, he chewed on his quills until they broke.

When he was angry, he was angry. He raised his voice, he clenched his fists, he lifted his head and squared his shoulders, becoming an avenging angel ready to challenge anyone who dared attack what he cared about. 

Mostly though, Aziraphale was happy, because overall and deep down he was a happy sort of person. He was always seeing the good in everything. 

And everything meant _everything_.

Take the weather, for instance. Cold weather, rather than being miserable, to Aziraphale meant being able to wrap up warm near a fire and enjoy a mug of hot chocolate. Wet weather meant being able to hear the rain falling against the windows. Foggy weather was mysterious – as if living in a haunted, magical castle in the middle of Scotland wasn’t mysterious enough.

Then there was food. Food was a constant delight. All those tastes and textures and colours. While Crowley sometimes found food overwhelming, Aziraphale adored it.

Learning was a delight too. He actually enjoyed their lessons, even History of Magic, which no sane student enjoyed, but somehow Aziraphale saw through the dry repetitiveness of the classes to see the people behind the various rebellions, uprisings, and wars. 

It wasn’t, therefore, much of a surprise when other students started to seek Aziraphale out for help, especially for charms after the whole duelling escapade, but then for other things as well. Help with a tricky potion, help on a transfiguration essay, help remembering the difference between Emeric the Evil and Elfric the Eager. 

And not just Hufflepuffs. First it was the odd Ravenclaw, ones they shared classes with. Then there was a Gryffindor or two, because apparently some of them did care about getting good grades. Those, Crowley could understand.

The two Slytherins though, that was going too far! 

“But why?” Crowley had asked once the two Slytherins had scuttled away. Why would Aziraphale help two _Slytherins_ of all people, especially when it came to charms?

“Because they asked,” Aziraphale said.

“But they’re Slytherins,” Crowley had protested. “ _Slytherins!_ ”

“They asked!” Aziraphale said firmly and that was that. 

Because that was Aziraphale. They asked, so he helped. And since Slytherins never asked for help – that was a sure sign of weakness – they couldn’t be bad Slytherins, so he had helped them, because Aziraphale always saw the good in everything, even in people. 

And Aziraphale had seen the good in Crowley, even when Crowley hadn’t seen it in himself. It was obvious to Crowley that the best day of his life had been the day the fair-haired boy had offered him a Cauldron Cake on the Hogwarts Express. 

Which was why, when Aziraphale started to change, Crowley grew concerned. 

At first, he tried to put it down to the stress of their end of year exams, but Aziraphale responded to stress the same way he responded to everything, bluntly, honestly, and whole heartedly. He muttered, he ranted, he once even threw a quill against the wall – although that led to a whole episode of him apologising to his quill, telling the quill that it wasn’t the quill’s fault, and then promising never to do anything like that again, despite the fact it was just a quill.

Once the exams were out of the way Crowley couldn’t pretend stress was even a factor any more. So he looked more closely and realised what was bothering him. 

This was happy Aziraphale, just faked. 

And if there was one thing Crowley had experience of, it was when someone was pretending.

This Aziraphale had all the signs of normal happy Aziraphale, but it was a performance; all surface level and no deeper. He was still being bubbly and cheerful but it seemed forced and unreal, as if he knew was what was expected of him and so acted accordingly.

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He pointed out pretty flowers and funny shaped clouds and all those sorts of things, but Crowley could hear the flat note in his voice and knew he was just going through the motions. He still ate, but the joy of tasting and sharing had gone. 

Worse though was when Crowley tried to broach the subject, Aziraphale merely shook him off. Everything was fine. He was fine. The weather was fine. Oh, look at that flower, wasn’t it beautiful!

It was so frustrating, because this wasn’t Aziraphale and after everything that Aziraphale had done for him, starting simply by being his friend, Crowley wanted to do something back. That was, after all, what friends apparently did. Admittedly this was a newish concept for Crowley because Slytherins didn’t exactly do friends – groups, alliances, deals sure, friends … eh, not so much.

Away from Aziraphale though, Crowley didn’t exactly have many people he’d even risk labelling as friends, and he wasn’t convinced that this sort of question was one you asked of acquaintances. Plus, asking wasn’t something that came naturally to him. But in this case, he overruled himself. It was too important. He was going to have to try.

So, he went to Tracy.

Tracy wanted to be helpful, but due to being a fifth year, she was also working very hard for her OWLs, and thus more than a little preoccupied.

“Have you tried talking to him about it?” she asked.

Yes, yes, he had tried, and Aziraphale had brushed him away. The advice to try again was no help. There was no way he was going to repeat a failure. 

So then he carefully raised the subject with Professor Longbottom, who at least listened intently, rather than trying to read two books at the same time. Unfortunately, his advice basically amounted to be there for his friend and let him come to him to talk to in his own time.

Helpful, but at the same time, not helpful, because the end of year was fast approaching and Crowley still didn’t know why Aziraphale had suddenly changed. And, whatever anyone claimed, fake-happy Aziraphale wasn’t real-happy Aziraphale. 

He missed real-happy Aziraphale.

Actually, he missed real-anything Aziraphale. The happy thing was nice, but it wasn’t why they were friends.

He considered it a while longer, but, in the end, he had to concede that if he wanted answers then there was probably only one person he was going to get them from.

There were four other Archangel cousins currently at Hogwarts, but there was no way he was ever going to approach Gabriel or Sandalphon (ugh) about anything to do with Aziraphale (or anything full stop). So that just left Michael or Uriel. 

Uriel was younger and, therefore, closer to their age but she was that little bit more distantly related, being a third cousin and all of that. When Aziraphale spoke about his family he didn’t talk about Uriel much, which was probably a good and a bad thing. Good in that he didn’t have anything particularly bad to say about her, bad in this case because it probably meant they weren’t close in any sort of way. If anything, Aziraphale spoke more and certainly more fondly, about Uriel’s younger sister Jophiel. But Jophiel wasn’t here, so he couldn’t speak to her.

Which left Michael. Fifth year, intimidating Michael, whose ruthlessness on the Quidditch pitch had helped Gryffindor to both the Quidditch and House cup once again. 

Michael was not the person Crowley really wanted to go to talk to, but for Aziraphale’s sake … well he would just suck it up and make the effort.

There were very few places where a first year Hufflepuff might crossover with a fifth year Gryffindor. The Great Hall was the most obvious place but there was no way Crowley was going to approach Michael in front of anyone else. The library, however, was a much better option, if he was lucky.

He was lucky.

She told him to go away without even bothering to look up from whatever it was she was working on.

He stood his ground.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said once she did look up. “What’s he done now?”

Of course, she would conclude it must be about Aziraphale, she wasn’t stupid and there was no other reason why Crowley would seek her out.

“He’s acting weird,” Crowley said, figuring he might as well get to the point. “Have one of you done something or said something to him?”

“He always acts weird,” Michael replied dismissively. “And no one’s been near him. No one would want to be near him anyway. It’s summer. He’s always mopey and pathetic during the summer. Is that what he’s doing? Being a pathetic little cry baby again?”

“No,” Crowley said, because if nothing else that was very much not what Aziraphale was doing, but it was clear Michael didn’t believe him.

“Well, he’s your problem now,” she said. “You deal with him.”

Crowley recognised a dismissal when he heard one. He also recognised when a person said more than they realised, so he hurried away grateful for what he’d got and thinking hard.

Aziraphale was sad. And he got sad every year around this time. Except rather than being sad he was pretending to be happy, because that was probably what he thought he should be. It was what he had always been told to be, because apparently no one wanted to be around a pathetic little cry baby. Crowley only noticed that his hands had curled into fists when his fingernails bit into his palms. 

Aziraphale was NOT a pathetic little cry baby. Sure, he was probably as genuine about sadness as he was about all his other emotions, which probably did involve crying, but the rest of what Michael had said, that was just plain mean. There was nothing wrong with being a little sad at times. Well, in theory. Crowley had never dared to ever show such an emotion around his family and family acquaintances, but he understood the principle. If Aziraphale was sad, he should be allowed to _be_ sad, and not have to pretend to be happy, and Crowley was all ready to go and tell Aziraphale this. 

Except Aziraphale found him first, and it wasn’t pretend-happy Aziraphale who found him, nor was it actually-sad Aziraphale, it was I’m-really-mad-and-you’ve-made-me-mad Aziraphale, and this was not an Aziraphale Crowley had anticipated at all.

“How could you!” 

Furrowed brow, clenched fists, reddening face and squared shoulder, Aziraphale was as angry as Crowley had ever seen him. It was a completely different anger to the one he had shown when he had taken on those Slytherins by himself. That had been a controlled, righteous anger. This was a more overwhelming. In fact it was pure rage. 

And Crowley realised it was being completely aimed at him.

“How could you!” Aziraphale repeated before Crowley could manage more than a broken, “Huh, whut?”

“ _Michael_ of all people! My cousin! You went to my cousin. Behind my back. You… you… traitor!”

Traitor!

The word pierced Crowley deeply like he had been struck by some sort of stunning spell.

“What? No!” he managed.

“Liar!” There were tears in Aziraphale’s eyes now. “I saw you! In the library! I saw you, you … traitor! I thought you were my friend!”

It was like being hit with two stunning spells, one straight after the other.

“I am your friend!” Crowley said desperately.

“So why were you talking to my cousin?”

“Because I was worried about you!” Crowley threw back. “You’ve been acting weird lately. I thought they might have done something or said something to you.”

“You could have just asked me!” Aziraphale said.

“I did!” Crowley protested. “You told me you were fine.”

“I _am_ fine!” Aziraphale said. “I just never thought someone who was supposed to be my friend would do such a thing. I trusted you. You were my friend. I thought you were on my side. On our side.”

“I am,” Crowley said. “I am on your side. Our side.” Then the previous words hit him. “What do you mean, ‘were my friend’. I’m _still_ your friend!”

Aziraphale chewed at his lips before saying coldly, “Friends don’t go behind their friend’s backs.”

Then he was gone.

Crowley stared after him, throat tight and heart pounding. Everything had gone wrong. He wasn’t sure where it had all gone wrong, but somehow, somewhere it had and he had a feeling that he’d had a hand in it. 

“He’s just upset,” an older Hufflepuff told him. “Go after him.”

“Nah,” his friend said, “let him cool down first, then go after him.”

There was a brief debate around him, but Crowley didn’t bother to listen. He just left.

An hour later he went to the lake. That was where he figured Aziraphale would be. It was a nice day after all, and while the Greenhouses were his place, the lake was Aziraphale’s.

He was right – which also meant that deep down Aziraphale wanted to be found, otherwise he would have gone somewhere more secret.

He approached slowly from the side, giving his friend plenty of time to see him and react if he wanted to.

Aziraphale glanced in his direction but otherwise didn’t move from where he was sitting.

Crowley stopped, swaying slightly on his feet before shoving his hands into his pockets.

“I wasn’t trying to go behind your back,” he said eventually, once the silence was too loud. “I was just… I was worried. I thought… I thought maybe they’d done something or said something to upset you. You’ve been doing this sort of fake-happy recently and I don’t understand why. It’s weird and I thought that maybe something was wrong. I was… I was just trying to be your friend.”

He dropped his head and waited.

Aziraphale sniffed and then there was a long pause. “S’okay,” he finally said in a small voice and then another sniff. “Shouldn’t have shouted at you. M’sorry.”

The weight dropped from Crowley’s shoulders and he could breathe properly again. Maybe he wasn’t such a terrible friend. Maybe he hadn’t messed up completely.

Then Aziraphale continued. “Should have known I wouldn’t even be able to do happy properly.”

What?

Crowley dropped to the ground near to his friend. “Why would you need to do happy properly? If you’re not happy, you’re not happy. Everyone’s allowed to be sad.”

Aziraphale picked idly at the grass. “I’m not,” he said. “ _They_ don’t like it when I’m sad, so I’ve got to be happy instead. Happy Aziraphale. Not sad Aziraphale. No one wants sad Aziraphale. They’re always telling me to buck up… to not be cry baby… that I’m bringing them all down. But sometimes I can’t help it,” he added, his chin starting to quiver. “I miss her. I miss Amma,” he said, his eyes welling up. “I miss my mum.”

And then the tears flooded over, and he pulled his knees up, wrapping his arms around himself and went into full blown sobbing. 

Crowley stared in horror as his best friend – really his own real friend – disintegrated before him. The horror wasn’t that Aziraphale was crying, but of something deeper. That Aziraphale, his friend, the truest person he knew, had been told that being sad about missing his mum was a bad thing, to the point where he had tried to pretend to be happy.

He missed his mum, and he wasn’t even allowed to cry about it.

Those… those… bloody Gryffindors!

Aziraphale didn’t talk about his mum much, so Crowley only knew the basics, that she had come from a muggle family and that she had died. Of course Aziraphale would miss her. It was his mum. 

His _mum_!

And just like that, Crowley started to cry too.

*

The story, as it was, went like this. 

Grace Penddenon had been a muggle-born Gryffindor. 

She’d had fair curly hair. Not as pale as her son’s would be, but more than obvious as to where he’d got it from.

She had enjoyed her time at Hogwarts, having been particularly good at charms and transfiguration. Being genuinely kind, she had been well liked and had had lots of friends, even some from other houses. She was bright and funny which, along with her kindness and generosity of spirit, were the things people most remembered about her.

She had one older brother and her parents, Aziraphale’s grandparents, were still alive and well. They were all muggles. 

She had been a first year when Raphael Fell had been a seventh year. They hadn’t properly met until a few years after she had left Hogwarts, and after Raphael had already endured several year’s worth of questions from the wider family about when he was going to find someone and settle down properly. He was a helpless case, the family had said, eventually. Adding, dammingly as far as they were concerned that he was too withdrawn, too boring, too bookish to ever find anyone who would even take a second look at him.

Grace Penddenon fell in love with him anyway. And she fell in love with him because of everything he was and not despite it. And Raphael loved her for everything she was as well, especially those things that he wasn’t. She was bright, and cheerful, and bought out the best in everyone around her. 

He adored her with the very essence of his soul.

They married in the summer, because that was her favourite time of year, when the flowers were bright, the trees were green, and the world was at its most alive.

Raphael would have preferred a small simple affair. He was not inclined to being the centre of attention. But with their families there was no chance of it ever being small or simple. Also, Grace deserved better than that. She deserved the big, lively wedding; a true match to her personality and her brightness. 

She wore a beautiful dress, old fashioned by muggle standards, and a garland of flowers in her hair. She laughed and she danced and Raphael Fell thought himself the luckiest man in the world. 

After the wedding, she brought freshness and light into their home. She softened his corners and helped him to be more social. He supported her in turn, financially, emotionally, and in regards to her work and research. They were a good team.

The pregnancy was surprising but not unwelcome.

It wasn’t an easy pregnancy though, even with all the medical aids of the wizarding world, but it was all worthwhile once the mediwitch placed the small but wiggling child in her arms, his face round and chubby, his hair so fair you could barely see it against his skin.

Worthwhile it might have been, but it wasn’t forgotten, Raphael adamant that he wouldn’t put his wife through that again.

They had their one beloved child though, a son, and they called him Aziraphale.

It should have been Aziraphael, but a transcribing error switched the last two letters. If Grace preferred it this way round, no one else needed to know, and Raphael wasn’t one to mind, even if it was his part of the name that had been misspelled.

Aziraphale was his mother’s delight and in many respects, very much his mother’s child. He shared a certain amount of her innate gentleness, a trait not visibly present in his paternal family, especially his cousins, who tended to confuse him with their constant boasting or attempts to outdo each other. They called him soft because he wasn’t interested in rough and tumble games. They called him boring because he liked books and learning and had no problem being by himself. They called him cowardly because he was reluctant to break rules or do things that would get him into trouble if caught. 

But that didn’t matter, because his Amma told him to just be who he was and to be happy with that. So he did, and it was all good.

Then she got sick. 

At least that was the story he knew.

What really happened, as in how and why she got sick, and why she didn’t get better, didn’t really matter, because all that really mattered was that she got sick.

And then she died.

Aziraphale was seven.

Aziraphale was seven, and his mother was dead.

Aziraphale was seven, and when his mother died a part of his father’s heart also died too.

Aziraphale was seven and all he could understand was that his mother wasn’t coming back.

So he cried.

And he cried.

And he cried.

He had always been a rather sensitive child, prone to emotions which he had been encouraged to express. Thus it was of little surprise that such a deep loss would be felt so keenly. Crying was the obvious natural reaction, an honest expression of what he was feeling, and it helped. Somehow crying helped with all those feelings, rebalancing them into something he could cope with.

He cried because he felt hurt, helpless and lost, and somehow the tears syphoned a little of it away.

Then slowly, as the pain gradually lessened, and the loss wasn’t so sharp, he didn’t cry so much.

Eventually a day would pass when he didn’t cry at all. 

Then that one day turned into two days. Then three days. Then four.

And gradually everything fell into a new normal, a different one from before, but a normal none-the-less. A normal he could exist in.

He spent time with his maternal grandparents, until family pressure made Raphael concede that a muggle home was no place for a wizarding child.

He spent time with his books, in worlds of his own, both magical and muggle, until family pressure once more made itself felt in the shape of his world.

So he spent time with his cousins, because being around children his own age would apparently do him some good, except children can be cruel and they called him names and told him to stop being such a cry baby.

Because there were times when it would all come crashing back and the tears were unstoppable but no allowances were to be made. He quickly realised that, at such times, seeking out his father at least meant he could let the feelings come – trying to go off alone didn’t work because they always followed. But he was Aziraphale, so it didn’t take long for him to realise that him being sad also made his father even more sad than he already was, so he stopped doing it. 

The only option left was to pretend that everything was alright, that he wasn’t really sad, even when he was. Other people seemed happier when he wasn’t sad. He didn’t get called names as much. He wasn’t made to feel bad. It was just easier for everyone if he hid his sadness away.

So, when this summer rolled round and he remembered how much his mother had loved summer, he did what he had learnt to do, he put on his happy face and faked it as hard as he could.

And then he saw Crowley and Michael talking, heard Michael call him a pathetic little cry baby, and his pain exploded into fury and that was that.

Because he _was_ a cry baby. 

Although he pretended otherwise, he missed his Amma. He missed her smiles, her enthusiasm, her hugs. He missed going on walks with her in the countryside. He missed ice cream in the garden. He missed telling her all about the book he was reading. 

He wanted her there again so he could tell her about Hogwarts, about being a Hufflepuff, about all the interesting things they had been learning. And he wanted to tell her about Crowley, about how good Crowley was at Herbology and how fast he liked flying on a broom. He wanted to tell her how Crowley was his best friend, and how happy that made him, because he had never had a best friend before, and how great it was, and how she was right that not everyone was like his cousins and that he would find people who liked him for him.

He wanted to go home and tell her everything, but going home, leaving Hogwarts wasn’t going to help, because she wasn’t at home anymore. There were no more walks in the country, or ice cream in the garden, or talking about books. And there were no more hugs and kisses and smiles.

His Amma was gone.

And now there was no point in hiding how much of a cry baby he actually was. Thanks to Michael Crowley now knew that too. So he stopped with the pretending, gave in, and cried.

*

Crowley was crying.

He wasn’t even sure why he was crying, except that Aziraphale was crying, so apparently seeing his best friend cry made him cry too.

It was weird, because Crowley didn’t do crying. Slytherins don’t cry. He’d learnt that from a young age and normally his control was absolute. Yet here he was, unable to stop the tears from forming and slipping silently from his eyes. 

There was no sobbing or anything, just the tears, so there was that. His sunglasses were a blessing though, as at least his eyes were hidden, which would give him plausible deniability had there been anyone else to notice. After all, Aziraphale wasn’t in any position to see.

Aziraphale was still crying, still properly crying, and Crowley wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, never mind whether he should try to do anything about it. He had no experience to pull from, so he did the only thing he could think of. He sat there, quietly, and he waited for Aziraphale to stop.

Apparently it was the right thing to do.

Aziraphale stopped crying.

“M’sorry,” Crowley heard Aziraphale say between the last of the heaving breaths and the wiping of his sleeve across his face. “Michael’s right. I’m just a big cry baby.”

“Not a cry baby,” Crowley said as he shook his head, rubbing surreptitiously at his own face. “Gryffindorks are idiots, remember. You lost your mum. Of course you’re going to be sad.”

Aziraphale said nothing for a moment, just stared blankly out across the lake.

“It’s okay usually,” he said finally. “But sometimes something reminds me of her and I get all sad and you know.” He waved vaguely at his face. 

Crowley nodded. “Would it, I dunno, help if you talked about her,” he offered. “You know, when you get sad.”

Aziraphale shrugged. “Father gets sad if I talk to him, and no one else wants to listen to me.”

“I’ll listen to you,” Crowley said tentatively. “You know, if you want me to.”

Aziraphale already did the majority of the talking when they were together, so it wouldn’t exactly be weird or anything, just something else that Aziraphale might tell him about.

“You- you wouldn’t mind?” Aziraphale said, rubbing at his face again.

Crowley shrugged. “Friends aren’t we?” he said. The whole friendship thing was still relatively new for him, but it felt like the right thing to do.

For a brief moment he thought Aziraphale might start crying again.

“Besides,” Crowley added quickly, “you’d listen to me. You know, if it were the other way round.”

That was definitely true. 

“We don’t need to be anywhere now, so why don’t you tell me about her. Like, what was she like? And why do you call her Amma?”

So, in fits and starts, and with a few more tears, Aziraphale did. He told Crowley what she looked like and sounded like. How bright her smile had been. How big her hugs. How she had always made him feel safe and loved and had told him that he shouldn’t be afraid to be himself.

He told about how his attempts at saying Mama as a baby had come out as Amma instead, and then it just stuck, and how he might have outgrown it eventually, but he hadn’t had the chance to, so she would always be Amma.

And he told of how he always got sad in the summer, because that was her favourite time of year, and how the sunshine always reminded him of her.

He laughed a little as he remembered a funny story, and cried a little when it was a sad one, and Crowley sat and listened until Aziraphale had nothing else to say and then they just sat there some more until it became too cold, and they had missed dinner, and if they didn’t leave then they would be out after curfew and they would get points docked if they were caught.

They crept in via the kitchens, where the house elves were more than happy to make them up a plate of food each that they could smuggle into their dorm.

They ended up cross legged on Aziraphale’s bed tucking into sausages and mash, and it was good. Aziraphale face was still a little swollen and blotchy from the crying, but his smile as he chewed on the sausages was genuine.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said once they had finished. “You know, for everything.”

Crowley nodded awkwardly. “What friends do, right?”

“I suppose,” Aziraphale said, looking down and away, his fingers fiddling with the bedsheet. “Except, I’ve never really had a friend before you, so I’m not sure I’m always very good at it. And I didn’t mean it, what I said earlier, about you not being my friend. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Yeah,” Crowley said. He shifted slightly. “Thing is, I’ve never had a friend before either. So I guess we’re the same.”

Aziraphale nodded. “I’m glad we’re friends though.”

“Yeah,” Crowley agreed. “Me too.”

“Friends forever?” Aziraphale said.

Crowley gave a small smile. “Friends forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Aziraphale is dealing with the grief of having lost his mother.
> 
> On a lighter note, this rounds out their first year at Hogwarts. I have further ideas for stories in this series, including one which is finished set during their 6th year. So look out for that at some point. By that point we're moving into pre-slash and pining Crowley mode. Technically, these stories could be seen as pre-slash, but it seemed weird to label stories about 11 year olds like that. 
> 
> Hope to see you all again soon! And happy return to Hogwarts day. 
> 
> May the Hogwarts of our hearts be a place of inclusivity where all are welcome regardless of nationality, ethnicity, colour, sexuality or gender.


End file.
